History
The twelfth root of two was calculated accurately by the Chinese court astronomer, historian, physicist and mathematician Zhu Zaiyu, Prince of Zheng of the Ming Dynasty. In 1584, Zhu published a work 律呂精義 A clear explanation of that which concerns the 律 . Prince Zhu made note of the difference between his ideal mathematically-tuned 呂 (ancient music instrument), which gave the theoretical music instrument lengths for 12-tone equal temperament correct to 25 places, implemented with an 81-column abacus and calculated the cubic root of the square root of the square root of 2, obtaining which coincidentally applied a form of Pythagorean tuning.
Calculated again in 1636 by the French mathematician Marin Mersenne, and as the techniques for calculating logarithms develop, the original approach for calculation would eventually become trivial.
Read more about this topic: Twelfth Root Of Two
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)